Existing IVC Technologies
Several technologies enable immediate voice communication. Though telephony voice communication can be easily established via a circuit switched line such as a telephony connection, it still has its delays (e.g. connection delay), which do not exist in PTT technologies such as iDEN (integrated Digital Enhanced Network) or TETRA (Terrestial Trunked Radio).
First introduced in 1994, iDEN is being used in the cellular telephony communication field. Its installation base is very low in comparison to that of other cellular technologies. In iDEN, a user can push a button and speak into his handset while his designated group receives his spoken words immediately. iDEN thus resembles a radio ‘walkie-talkie’ technology. The target audience can immediately reply, also very similar to a ‘walkie-talkie’ system.
TETRA is an open standard for a single, cohesive two-way radio network supporting multiple government agencies throughout the country that communicate together on the same network, etc.), and has a small installed base within the consumer sector.
Other IVC technologies include “Private Mobile Radio”, which is a short-range radio service with limited capabilities that is mainly used by work groups, and “Walkie Talkie Terminals” such as ‘Cobra’ and ‘Talkabout’, which represent a growing market in the consumer segment (theme parks, ski resorts, etc.), but have a limited transmission range.
PTT technologies have a small installed base within the cellular market in comparison with other popular cellular technologies such as GSM, CDMA, and TDMA.
Recently, an emerging ‘always-on’ concept for data networks has been developed. In this concept, a user is always connected with his/her cellular handset to a data network. This can be seen in the GPRS cellular technology where an IP network is added to a GSM cellular voice network. This permanent data connectivity has developed a lot of hope for IVC over a large installed base of cellular users.
VoIP can transmit voice over data networks and as such it is expected to become a key technology for the IVC concept over data networks. However, such a VoIP implementation requires modification of the end-user's handset in order to enable this handset to support encoding and decoding of voice over the IP network. Such a modification can be called ‘client software’.
Existing Immediate Messaging Solutions
ICQ is a widely used immediate messaging technology, started as an Internet-based (and thus data-based) technology. The ICQ technology enables people to communicate by text messages that are immediately forwarded over the Internet. One can attach a voice file to an ICQ message, but the technology is not voice-based and voice is only an attachment. Though ICQ is implemented over advanced cellular networks such as the GPRS network, it uses the data part and not the voice part of the cellular network. The ICQ technology requires ‘client software’ to be installed on the end-user devices. Other ICQ-like technologies exist, for example ‘AOL messenger’.
Short messaging services (SMS) represent another immediate messaging platform that enables immediate text messages with up to 160 characters to be transmitted over a signaling sub-network of a telephony (especially cellular) system. EMS (Enhanced SMS) is a technology that enables concatenation of short SMS messages, thus enabling transmission of images or pictures.
Another immediate voice messaging method can be seen as a multi media service (MMS)-based ‘record and send’ service. In this service, a user records his message in his MMS supporting handset, then sends the message to another MMS ‘record and send’ supporting handset. The message is stored within the target user's handset and can be played. This service requires an MMS supporting network as well as dedicated handsets, and requires a lot of interoperability efforts in order to run among various networks and handsets.
Another immediate voice messaging method is voice paging (VP). VP is based on calling a certain phone number and then entering a subscriber identification number (IDN) followed by relaying of the voice message. The message is sent to a voice-paging device.
The appearance of 2.5G cellular technologies such as GPRS enable immediate messages to be transmitted over an always-connected data network. SMS messages can be similarly transmitted.
Recent efforts at standardizing the instant communication or instant messaging technologies include the ‘Wireless Village’ Forum founded by Ericsson, Motorola and Nokia in April 2001 to define and promote a set of universal specifications for mobile instant messaging and presence services. The Wireless-Village proposes a standard protocol for instant messaging and presence service (IPMS), which includes presence information management, instant messaging, group management and shared content. Another forum is PAM—the Presence and Availability Management forum. The PAM forum is an independent, non-profit consortium established to standardize the management and sharing of presence and availability information across multiple services and networks. The IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) has a group that deals with the Instant Messaging and Presence Protocol (IMPP). The IMPP group is working on protocols and data formats necessary to build an Internet-scale end-user presence awareness, notification and instant messaging system. The most recently established group (Oct. 31, 2002) is the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) working group within the IETF.
Existing Voice-Mail Technologies
Leaving voice messages over a telecommunication network is a common behavior supported by voice-mail systems. These forward a call to a voice-mail answering machine that enables the calling user to leave a voice message. Voice-mail systems are built to different capacity and sizes: systems for telecommunication carriers, for medium size organizations or even for private customers (an answering machine at home). These systems enable the calling user to leave a message in case the called party does not answer, in case the called number is busy, or even in case of call waiting. It is also possible to leave a message in case the called party is a cellular client within an area without proper radio coverage. Another way for leaving a voice message is by dialing directly to the voice-mail system (without calling the target user), including the target user's phone number. Thus, dialing for example 151-54-123456 will enable leaving a voice and/or fax message to subscriber No. 054 123456 without even calling him/her.
When a voice (and/or a fax) message is left for a target customer, the customer can find out about this event either by getting an SMS notification; by getting a small icon e.g.  that will be displayed on his/her handset display; or by simply lighting an indicator on his/her phone (which can be a wire-line phone connected to a wire-line telecom network or a PBX (private exchange)).
Another way to find out whether new voice-mails have arrived to one's voice-mailbox is simply by calling the voice-mail system and hearing how many new messages are waiting. Message retrieval is done by calling the voice-mail system, hearing the interactive voice reply (IVR) and following the instructions of the IVR.
Voice-mail technologies are common. Comverse (29 HaBarzel Street, Ramat Hachayal, Tel Aviv 69710, Israel) has developed and leads the market with voice-mail technology. Voice-mail technologies can use SS7 signaling system interconnections in order to be connected to the telephony system. Other voice-mail systems are implemented over data networks. These voice-mail systems use VoIP technologies in order to receive and send voice to the data networks that these voice-mail systems are connected to.
Some voice-mail systems (such as Comverse's) enable the user who leaves a message to mark this message as “urgent”. In such cases, all urgent messages will be played to the target user before the ‘regular’ messages (those that have not been market urgent). The playing order of the urgent messages is according to the chronological time they were left.
Existing VoIP Implementations for Instant Voice Communication
In prior art, there are a few attempts made to implement instant voice communication over data networks. These implementations try to emulate the usage experience of ‘push to talk’ technologies. For example, Mobile Tornado (6 Galgaley Haplada Street, P.O. Box 4043, Herzlya 46140, Israel) uses cellular data networks (e.g. GPRS, 1×RTT, etc.), which have the feature of being always connected to the end-user. Thus, the user is always connected to the network and therefore is always available to receive a message in a very short time. Because the networks mentioned above are built for data transmission, voice can be transmitted over such networks only as VoIP. VoIP requires a special network installation, special handsets, special interoperability issues, therefore time to market is much longer, the number of users that can use this system is lower and there are many interoperability open issues. Also, VoIP networks suffer from a low quality of service (QoS) because of typical characteristics of VoIP systems such as jitter (variable delay), delay, bandwidth problems etc.
Disadvantages of Existing Solutions
Existing solutions do not provide instant voice messaging with almost real time experience of voice communication for ALL telephony systems and technologies—both wire-line and cellular. Most existing solutions require client software on the end-user terminal. Most existing solutions have a limited installed base such as iDEN technology or TETRA technology.
Existing VoIP solutions for instant voice communications over 2.5G cellular data networks such as GPRS data network have a lower voice quality than circuit switched voice networks. This is mainly because of the improved voice quality that circuit switched voice networks can provide. Circuit switched voice networks are dedicated telephony connections, wherein data networks are packet-based. A VoIP technology is required when packed based networks (data networks) are used to transmit voice, and the quality of the transmitted voice is lower than the quality of voice transmitted over a circuit switched network.
Existing methods for retrieval of voice and/or fax messages require a user to call the system, listen to system greetings and new messages that were received prior to the desired message, then finally retrieve the desired message.
Existing PTT technologies do not necessary provide a “store and forward” engine. In other words, a message that was not heard is actually lost, similar to the situation in two-way radio communication. A lack of store and forward engine makes PTT intrusive, i.e. a handset may suddenly begin to make an intrusive noise when playing an incoming voice message. iDEN for example does not allow storing a sent message. Therefore, if the targeted user is not listening, the message would be lost. Furthermore, no indication that a message tried to reach a target user will be provided to the target user. Also, no indication for reception or non-reception is provided to the initiating user.
A major disadvantage of existing message retrieval methods is that the target user cannot reach and retrieve a specific message without hearing all previous messages. Furthermore, even in case that the target user is notified of an expected voice (and/or a fax) message that is very important and/or urgent, the target user still has to call his/her voice-mail system and hear all the previous messages. Another disadvantage of known voice-mail retrieval methods is the need to listen to the greetings part and the operational instructions of the IVR. One recently introduced method that enables instant voice-mail retrieval is provided by Comverse and called ‘visual voice-mail’. This method requires a dedicated ‘client software’ or a dedicated handset as well as an additional communication link (e.g. IP based session) with the voice-mail system. In fact, according to this method, the end-user can have a browsing session with the voice-mail in which the user will find out what messages were left for him/her, and then can choose a message to be played. The message will be played as requested. This method definitely requires a special end-user device as well as an IP-based session with the voice-mail server.
U.S. Patent Application No. 20020146097 discloses a method, apparatus and system for short voice message (SVM), which is sent as a SMS message, a SMS-like message, or as an instant message. The method of operation suggested by the patent application includes one of the following: using the MMS protocol on new user terminals and networks; utilizing existing SMS point-to-point service by concatenating packet data unit (PDU) strung together to form a short voice message; applying a voice to text converter on the recorded message and a text to voice converter as the message is played; or by sending the voice message on data networks.
Canadian Patent No. 2355420 describes an apparatus and method for transmission of information over an electronic network in the form of a user-to-user voice messaging service between mobile phone subscribers. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the system is provided as a voice SMS platform, comprising a voice SMS server and an application user interface layer coupled with a Graphic User Interface (GUI). The invention may be applicable based on of the following technologies: browser-based interface based on Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) or HTML or C-HTML; SIM Application ToolKit (SAT); and Interactive Voice Response (IVR).
U.S. Patent Application No. 20020146097 and Canadian Patent No. 2355420 do not disclose solutions that may be implemented with existing standard network and end-user equipment, allowing the full end-user flexibility and real-time usability.
There is therefore a widely recognized need for, and it would be highly advantageous to have methods and systems for instant voice messaging and voice message retrieval that do not exist in prior art.